Untying the Knot
by Blackfire 18
Summary: Agent K and Dick continue to date, much to CAR's chagrin, but when the couple return home one evening and begin to get hot n' heavy in CAR's front seat, the smart spy vehicle doesn't stand for it.


**Untying the Knot**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Replacements or any of the characters there within; they are property of Disney.**

C.A.R. waited in the crowded parking lot behind a monster truck rally arena, cursing Agent G for being so kind as to overlook the practical uses of a mute feature that would have staved off the crunching and grinding cacophony a few car lengths from his sensitive hearing sensors. If C.A.R. had skin, it would certainly have been crawling. The equivalent of car bodies being mangled to him would be punctured flesh and breaking bones to human ears. But no, the only mute feature was reserved for the user if they ever wanted to silence C.A.R.

Preposterous! Who would ever not want to hear C.A.R.'s sagely advice or snappy witticisms in all of life'—

A particularly horrendous screech of metal made the fine reading line on the monitor in C.A.R.'s cabin twist and he had had enough.

The vehicle started, shifted itself into drive and peeled out of the parking space unmanned; his nerves raw and his mood dark.

Karen Mildred Cunningham, better known as Agent K of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, was on yet another date with the crude, boorish, and utterly moronic stuntman Richard Daring. This was the third in two weeks…not that C.A.R. was keeping count. But C.A.R. noticed a distressing trend in K's work habits of foregoing missions if there were a suitable replacement. C.A.R. did the calculations: K sometimes called in favors for a ride to her drop sites, but each time K left without C.A.R., she came home giddy, loose, and smelling faintly of aftershave. She had gone to see the buffoon. Statistics never lied.

And C.A.R. didn't like it.

"Dodgy, blinkered twit trying to chat up K when she just happens to be on the pull. All sixes and sevens. Tricky daft Dicky may diddle her but I'll sooner nut him into detainment at Her Majesty's pleasure!"

C.A.R. stewed in his frustrations, practicing just how he would fricassee a certain gentlemen caller with the buzz saw beneath his hood. No one dared venture too close to the vehicle; even a would be thief looking to nick something from the vehicle turned back the way he came at the sound of a live saw.

A little over an hour and some mysterious gouge marks in the surrounding asphalt later, C.A.R.'s remote transmitter lit up. K was calling for him.

C.A.R. reluctantly replaced the missiles, lasers, and buzz saw back into their proper places beneath the hood. Then, tires squealing, he plotted a course to where K and the ape waited, wondering just how to implement the many schemes he'd devised to separate them that night. Permanently.

* * *

"Yep. Someone stole your car, K." Dick concluded as he walked a fifth time around the parking space that had some two hours ago been occupied by the his date's white sports convertible. The platinum blonde smoothed at her navy blue dress and checked the watch on her wrist.

"Well, I'll get a lock on hi—my car's position and see where it's gone." She tapped the watch's face with one finger.

She had met Dick at his house and Dick surprised her by wearing a three piece suit for their evening out, complete with cummerbund. He struck a handsome figure in his dress attire. She had worn her favorite dress, a fancy number that hung off one shoulder and hugged her every curve. She had chosen it with Dick in mind. She fondly remembered Dick stumbling over his words to compliment her beauty, but she saved him with a compliment for his stately bearing.

The pair had already gone to an expensive French restaurant for dinner in the heart of Pleasant Hills, where Dick butchered the French items so badly that K had to order for both of them. But she didn't mind. She had laughed herself to near tears when Dick demanded their best snail-eating cheese frogs for the main course and inadvertently called the waiter a "baguette brain" when asking for more bread. And then when the meal arrived, Dick had no idea what he ordered, but tucked in and messily devoured the portions. K had never sat through such an entertaining dinner.

Of course, Dick revisited with his meal when he discovered he had eaten snails and K, feeling terrible, offered if he wanted to eat elsewhere, but a pale Dick admitted he was not so hungry anymore. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and he suddenly seemed on the mend.

From there they went to the monster truck show, on K's request to do something "American" and it was very unusual to anything K had ever experienced. But Dick's enthusiasm fed her own and before long she was shouting right along with him to see some carnage.

They walked tightly clasped to each other out of the arena, graphically recapping the best moments of the event, only to discover that C.A.R. had gone missing. K had not considered how C.A.R. must have felt being so close to the sound of stationary vehicles being junked.

So it was with some guilt that she called him back.

"—you find it, how are we s'possed to get it? I mean, I'll tackle the jerk who took stole your wheels, but how do we get to wheels with wheels we're not…wheels having…" Dick lapsed into a confounded silence. "It's impossible! How do you catch a car without car! If only my rocket-powered lawnmower were here. What do we do, K? What do we DO?"

Suddenly, the white sports vehicle roared up and drifted to a sideways stop beside K. Dick's hands dropped from their knot in his dark hair, a big grin cracking his face. He got to his feet and jumped, pointing.

"Here it is! How did you do that? It's like you drove your C.A.R. here by remote, or we have an invisible valet."

A sharp, masculine cough interrupted Dick.

"Wow, you should get your throat checked, K."

The woman smiled nervously, gave her car a warning slap, and hopped into the driver seat. She and C.A.R. had agreed to keep C.A.R.'s sentience a secret, but the sarcastic vehicle was appearing to have great difficulty keeping his tongue the longer she associated with Dick.

The woman started her convertible and drove Dick home.

* * *

The couple pulled into the driveway at Dick's modest house at the end of a quiet suburb. She shut down the engine and turned to the stuntman.

"I've had a lovely evening, Dick."

"Yeah, me too with the monster trucks and the dinner—but not the slugs." He stuck out his tongue and wiped at imaginary slime, which made K giggle. He slid an arm over the seat headrests behind K's shoulders and the British spy hid her knowing smile. "You really had fun?"

"Of course, it was very American."

"Except the French parts." Dick reminded her. The woman hummed in amused agreement. The man grinned.

"Indeed." She touched his knee. Dick may not have been the brightest bulb in the closet, but he understood this subtle nuance. "Well, give us a bell and we'll have a knees up."

The man's eyes went wide in incomprehension, but something clicked in them and he flashed her a large, crooked grin.

"Don't have to tell me twice." Dick leaned forward and kissed K full on the lips.

"O-Oh!" K stammered around the man's mouth, her thoughts flying to C.A.R. "I meant call me and we'll—Oh, Dick!"

K's lips parted as the man trailed a line of hot kisses down K's neck to her naked shoulder. The woman's mind went blank as the world around her receded to nothing but Dick's touch. A strong arm closed around her waist and she embraced Dick, enjoying the breadth of his back in her arms. K was slender but no small woman and the encompassing presence of Dick made her feel petite and protected. She exhaled a small gasp of pleasure when he gently nipped her collarbone. The pink haze began to fill her mind as Dick returned to her lips. They kissed deeply.

She didn't resist as the man hugged her hips to his and laid her back along the seats; her hand ran up his back to clutch at his black hair. Dick's large hand moved up her thigh, his touch was electric, and raised her dress. K drew her left leg up along the seat back and unzipped the front of Dick's dress pants, their breathing labored—

"_That's QUITE enough!_"

Dick's weight vanished above K and the man yelled in surprise as he was hurled unceremoniously onto the grass beside the driveway by a mechanical arm. Dick hit the ground hard on his back, winded, while K sat upright just as the canopy to her convertible snapped shut. The windows rolled up and doors locked at once.

"C.A.R., what are you doing?" K demanded, tugging her dress back down over her legs. She tried to open the door but it remained firmly shut.

A dazed Dick suddenly squinted down the glaring headlights of K's white convertible, armed to the windshield with laser guns, missiles, and a massive buzz saw. The mechanical arm shoved a finger at his nose with powerful precision.

"Don't you _ever_ touch K again, you sodding twit or I will personally saw you LENGTHWISE!" C.A.R.T.E.R. screamed and slammed the buzz saw into the earth at Dick's feet so a spray of grass and dirt went flying. Dick had enough sense to scramble out of the way.

"C.A.R.!" K shrieked, pounding on the glass, shocked at the violence of her partner's fury. She tried to force the safety lock up but C.A.R.'s grip was ironclad; K was nothing more than an onlooker of the scene that unfolded before her.

"Have I made myself quite _plain_, you daft ape?" the talking vehicle commanded, weapons bristling and bearing down on Dick, but the man was still trying to make sense of who was speaking. The weapons snapped back under the hood as the white sports car's tires squealed out of the drive, leaving behind two thick skid marks and a gaping hole in Dick's lawn.

Dick watched in horror as the car screamed out of sight.

"C.A.R.T.E.R.! Stop this instant!" K alternated between turning the keys in the ignition, yanking the wheel, and kicking in the break pedal, but none gave or made C.A.R. slow in the least.

"No!" the male British voice shouted back. "I know exactly where that—that hanky panky was going. Made me right honking barmy. You are never seeing that bleeding bampot again!" The vehicle ripped around the maze of the suburbs.

"C.A.R. you about-turn at once and apologize to Dick!"

"I've never seen you like this—" his shock was lost to K's livid, and ignored, commands, "he's an insult to your intellect and has had a damaging impact on your common sense. H-He was trying to go full monty with you! No, I'm taking you back to England straight away. We're through with this country; we'll get you a reassignment elsewhere." The vehicle revved and began to expand its collapsible compact wings into jet mode.

"Full monty?" K repeated. "You're a mite late there, C.A.R."

"WHAT?"

The retracting wheels stuck in mid-transformation and C.A.R.T.E.R. came crashing back down to earth, squealing to an abrupt stop on road and sidewalk. K's wrists ached from bracing herself against the steering yoke. For a long moment they sat in silence.

"Bloody nora." C.A.R. whispered, stunned. K pushed back her platinum blond bangs and sighed.

"Not that it's necessarily your business," K began with a tight clear of her throat, "it was at secondary school in a time before you and when my mother was still on the advisory committee for MI6. Before she accepted my agent application." A high-pitched drone filled the cabin. K tucked a loose tendril behind one ear. "I wasn't truly interested in the bloke, I just…wanted to upset my mum because I knew she was keeping tabs on me." The woman bit her lip at the memory, still feeling a childish pride over the affair. "She went positively barking over it."

Silence.

"At any rate, it was a long time ago and Dick is much more important to me than some tawdry one night stand."

Silence.

"All right there, C.A.R.?"

"Bloody nora." The vehicle repeated. K frowned and pressed a button on the navigation board that scrambled C.A.R.'s radio signals for an instant; it acted like a brief electric shock. He yelped.

"It is a natural human function, I'll have you know."

"Not if you're coupling with an ape, it's not." C.A.R. drawled in a faintly uncertain sarcastic voice. K crossed her arms over her chest with a sharp cough. "Whatever you did before me—my God, secondary school?—is irrelevant. What matters are your choices now and your choices recently have been imprudent."

"Excuse me, I'm very capable of controlling my faculties." The woman's determination devolved to embarrassment as her partner huffed his doubts. "Th-though I admit it was rather cheeky that we—that we were about to—on your sea—"

"Damn right! What were you thinking? I thought you and I had some form of mutual respect, a candid understanding. I would never do this sort of thing to you. How could you, K?" C.A.R.T.E.R. asked, genuinely accosted by her behavior. She could clearly hear how betrayed he felt. K shrank in the driver's seat, rubbing nervously at her forehead.

"I'm sorry, it was a heat of the moment sort of thing. Dick just makes me giddy. I have needs…and I haven't been with a man since that bloke in secondary—"

"All right!" C.A.R. cut her off quickly. "Fine. We won't speak of…_that_. What concerns me is your reasoning these past few weeks. Avoiding calls, ducking missions, shirking responsibilities—you promised to wash me and you haven't yet! How could this—this utter idiotic fool capture your interest so greatly you stop acting as an agent? What is it you see in this ninny?"

A silly smile spread across the agent's face.

"He's a big sweetheart." K said as though this answered all of C.A.R.'s debate points. In the wake of his silence, K was pressed to continue. "He's sensitive. He has a hearty, full laugh and he makes me laugh. He's passionate about his work, he loves animals—do you know he picketed against animal testing? And he knows just where to touch."

"K, please!" C.A.R. whined. K lapsed into silence and smiled to herself as she remembered Dick inadvertently insulting the French waiter.

"I had a wonderful evening with him and that's something I couldn't say for the last four years. He's thinking of settling down, a quiet place in the suburbs…children."

"Oooh, no!" her partner wailed. "One headache at a time. I can barely handle your decision to see this nimrod, let alone your deplorable actions tonight, and now you're throwing this new wrench into the works. What am I supposed to think, K?"

But K didn't answer. She looked up through C.A.R.'s ceiling, the obstructed stars still reflecting in her eyes.

"I love him."

C.A.R. sighed.

There was a moment of silence between them before C.A.R. opened the canopy, popped the locks open and rolled down the windows as though it were suddenly too hot in the cabin. K was frozen to her seat as her vehicle fell still. Only the hum of C.A.R.'s brain filled the quiet.

"I'm sorry, C.A.R.T.E.R." K said softly and touched the space above the blue screened monitor. "You're right. I take full responsibility for what happened, I wasn't thinking, but I would feel much better about it if we drove back and reassured Dick. Poor man must be so confused."

Silence.

"C.A.R.?"

But there was no response. K waited for several minutes before she retrieved her keys from where they had been thrown under the instrument panel and pushed them into the ignition. She was startled that C.A.R. started without a fuss, without a word, and K turned them around for Dick's house.

* * *

K pulled into the driveway, only mildly surprised to see Dick still on the lawn, his pants zipper still down, staring at nothing. The platinum blond swept out of the vehicle and dropped to embrace Dick on the grass.

"Dick, I'm so sorry! I'm really a super spy and my car is Britain's most advanced highly technological armored escort with a super computer brain and first rate interpersonal and analysis software! He was a mite upset about our relationship, but he's here to apologize. There, now you know everything, darling!" K pressed the man with a kiss and squeezed him, but Dick stared blankly past her muttering "Saw, saw, saw" under his breath. "Dear, would you mind if I run inside and use the facilities?"

"Bzzzzzt. Saw."

K fished Dick's keys from his pocket and pressed another kiss to the man's forehead with a word of thanks before walking into the house. The second the door closed behind her, that familiar mechanical arm whipped out of the white convertible's hood and reached for Dick.

The man screamed and tried to run away, but the hand was too fast for him.

Grabbing Dick by the neck of his suit, C.A.R. yanked the stuntman off the ground and brought him in close to his bright headlights, making sure that Dick's scrambling feet could not touch the ground.

"Listen you. K has been a respected agent and my partner for years; she is a posh, dishy woman who can do so much better, but for some yampy reason she's arse over tits for you. I don't understand it myself, but K cares for you and I wouldn't do anything to harm her. Her happiness is more important to me than my comfort. I will protect her at all costs and the second you've hurt her," C.A.R. released his buzz saw and brought it spinning close to a squealing Dick's face, "you're brown bread. Understand?"

"Y-Y-You can talk."

C.A.R.'s saw stopped abruptly. He dropped the ignoramus back onto the pavement, his mechanical hands arching to the sky as if in agony.

"K why, dash it all, why? Why?"

Dick dumbly watched as the vehicle's mechanized hands became fists that pounded on its own fenders. A sudden fondness enveloped the man; the spooky living car seemed really upset.

"Hey buddy, what's wrong? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Yes, K is in grave danger. But I can right that, bodge job." A pair of laser guns reeled out of the vehicles headlights and took aim at Dick. "Quick blast, amnesia tablet, yes. Mend everything." The lasers powered up to fire.

"K's in trouble?" Dick repeated, fear creasing his brow. "No, I won't allow anything to happen to my Bunny Honey! Where are these Bog Knobs? I'll take 'em all for K!" The man screamed, beating his chest. C.A.R. quickly tucked away his arms and weapons as K returned.

"What is it Dick, why are you shouting? Did C.A.R. apologize?" she asked.

"I apologize that you're dating this barmy Yank." He sniffed.

"C.A.R.!"

"Yeah," Dick said, startling both of the British spies. "This car was really worried about you, K, he was all scared you're in some kind of trouble." K looked over at C.A.R., but he seemed to be too shocked to respond.

"I see." She murmured.

"And I really care about you too. So we decided to team up to protect you, K!"

"What?" C.A.R. snapped. "I said no such thing."

But Dick ignored him and reached out to pat the white convertible, but one of the mechanical hands appeared and smacked him.

"Don't touch me. And don't touch K, if you know what's good for you, you twit."

K opened her mouth to reprimand C.A.R., but her watch began beeping and she saw she had been called to service early the next morning. The woman sighed.

"I'd better be getting home, I have to work tomorrow." K glanced at C.A.R. meaningfully. Dick's attention turned from his smarting hand to the blonde who slipped into his embrace.

"So, you're a spy, huh?" he smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. K smiled an affirmative. "What does that make me?"

"A liability."

"C.A.R.!"

"Let's go, K." C.A.R. started his engine. K clicked her tongue at him and returned to Dick for a good-bye kiss just as a blaring horn jarred them apart.

"All right! All right! Good night, Dick. Ring me and we'll have a knees u—ahem—go dancing next time."

K hopped into the driver's seat and waved Dick good-bye. He returned it; his fly still open to the night air.

* * *

When K and C.A.R. returned to her upscale apartment tucked into a corner of a private lot and the garage door shut behind her, she shut down the engine, took her keys out of the ignition and gripped the door handle.

"Good night, K."

C.A.R. sounded resigned; making no effort to try talking her out of pursuing her relationship with Dick as he did every other night. K hesitated. Instead of climbing the stairwell to her apartment, she lay down along C.A.R.'s seats, allowing her cheek to press the familiar fabric to her cheek.

"K?" her partner began.

"Close the canopy, C.A.R."

The vehicle froze. K had not lain down in his cabin and requested the canopy shut to keep off rainwater so she could nap since she was twenty-one. That was back in the days she was still awed by C.A.R.T.E.R. and couldn't get enough of his high-tech features or sassy attitude. She used to love sleeping in the cabin. Those days she had not had any boyfriends then and though C.A.R. had teased her, K always had a ready retort that impressed him to silence. She had made herself special to him then and C.A.R. swore to protect her from whatever evils he could. Including subpar gentlemen callers.

But the sensors lining C.A.R.'s cabin picked up all the subtle changes in his partner. Temperature slightly elevated, heartbeat faintly erratic in places, a quiet hum of pleasure escaped her throat. She was relaxed, her breathing steady, comfortably curled. K was practically purring on his leather.

C.A.R. would never admit to it, but seeing her so contended made some part of him feel…human; and he preferred K's company to a cold, empty garage like some common SUV. Moreover, he enjoyed it.

So it was with some surprise that C.A.R. acquiesced.

"Of course, K."

The canopy snapped softly shut over the spy. A blissful sigh tumbled from the woman's lips.

"Good night, C.A.R.T.E.R."

"…Good night, Karen."

* * *

**Author's Note: Since my last "The Replacements" was received so well, I thought I would give this show another shot. A recent review encouraged me to rewatch "The Replacements" and I tumbled right back into my love for K, C.A.R., and Dick. There was one episode where Riley chases her beau Johnny to New York and toward the end K and C.A.R. appear as a taxi driver and taxi respectively. K said something along the lines of 'if you love something set it free, but keep if under constant surveillance' and she leaned back against C.A.R. and he agreed with her. That sealed it. And here we have a happy story of K and Dick almost reaching third base in C.A.R.'s front seat! (Plus, I'm just a dork who wishes she had a talking car. Living vicariously? Why, whatever do you mean?)**

**I love the dynamic between these three, K and her love for her man and machine, Dick's ignorance of C.A.R.'s hatred for him and C.A.R.'s quiet affection for K. Which makes me want to write a fanfic where C.A.R. and Dick switch bodies. Hot n' steamy shenanigans! I love it!**

**This story actually took me a few days to pound out. I originally had Dick proposing, but cut it for the lovin' in Dick's driveway. Maybe I could add the proposal as a second chapter? Hmm.**

**I hope everyone who read my first "The Replacements" story enjoys this one-the same warm offer extends to new readers as well. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!**

**Blackfire 18**


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